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by Carolyn Abraham
Last year, more than two million prescriptions for Ritalin and other ADHD drugs were written specifically for children under 17, and at least 75 per cent of them were for young males. Part 3 of a 6-part series.
For school children across the country – most of them boys – taking a drug for attention deficit disorder each morning has become as commonplace as downing a vitamin. But the daily ritual has been quietly growing in Canada, year after year – a trend that's dwarfing rates in other countries and raising disturbing questions about the forces driving it.
Figures compiled for The Globe and Mail by IMS Health, an independent firm that tracks pharmaceutical sales, show prescriptions for Ritalin and other amphetamine-like drugs for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder shot up to 2.9 million in 2009, a jump of more than 55 per cent in four years.
More than two million were written specifically for children under 17 – a leap of 43 per cent since 2005 – and at least 75 per cent of them were for young males – a ratio some see as evidence that society is making a malady of boyhood itself.
“What if we were drugging girls... READ MORE... |
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by Carolyn Abraham
A new study says male elementary teachers live in a steady state of anxiety, with 13 per cent reporting they had been wrongly accused of inappropriate contact with students. Part 2 of a six-part series.
The male elementary teacher is the spotted owl of the education system, the leatherback turtle, the Beluga.
His presence is so endangered that in many public schools his numbers can be counted on a single hand. In some schools, it requires no hands at all.
“It is now possible for a child in Canada to go through elementary school and high school and never see a male at the front of the class,” says Jon Bradley, an associate professor of education at McGill University, where men make up just five per cent of the elementary teachers in training.
The trend isn't new. Men have been the clear minority in primary teaching since the days of the one-room school house. But with their numbers dwindling to less than 20 per cent nationally, fixing the imbalance has taken on a certain urgency and there's already been talk of affirmative action. Of all the theories offered to explain why boys trail girls in academics, the lack of male role models tends to lead the pack.
Boys increasingly grow up without fathers... READ MORE... |
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by Carolyn Abraham
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 1:16PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 10:52PM EDT
Compelling statistics show boys rank behind girls by nearly every measure of scholastic achievement, yet the phenomenon is as polarizing as it is puzzling. Part 1 of a six-part series.
In 1998, when stories about schools short-changing girls still played in the press, and research continued to chronicle the gender bias against females in the classroom, some of Canada's leading educational publishers began revising their standard science textbooks for Grades 7 through 10.
Several studies had faulted textbooks for pushing sexist stereotypes of Dick and Jane, driving girls away from certain subjects, science in particular. Mindful of that, publishers instructed their contributors to feature girls prominently in the revised editions.
“If you had a picture of a person doing something positive, winning a race, performing an experiment successfully, etc., [you had to] make sure it was of a girl,” said one of the consultants involved in the revisions. “If you had to have a picture of someone doing a bad thing – bullying, making a mistake, being unsure which course of action to take, etc. – the image was invariably of a boy.”
The consultant, who asked that his name be withheld... READ MORE... |
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by Kristina Wright and Michael Waski, NAMTA Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies
I will attempt to explain pedagogy of place, in respect to my school, using the concentric circles approach which I have illustrated above. I will begin with the immediate school community. My school is called Northstar Montessori Private School and is located in Mississauga, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. We have approximately 230 to 240 students, ranging in age from sixteen months to grade six, currently. We will be starting up our adolescent program in September of 2009, with three grade six students and three grade seven students. The families in our school are mostly middle to upper class, with a large ethnic diversity, predominantly East Indian, Chinese and Filipino. I am hoping to use the families within the school community as a resource for Ethnic Studies and specialties (depending on parent’s occupations), etc. Also, with the school, the adolescent students will be able to assist in other classrooms as reading buddies, supervision, developing a compost program, and other... please click here to see the whole essay in its original form in pdf format.
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Letter grades are out, progress is in and Ontario's teachers are being invited to compose their own comments
Kate Hammer
From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Mar. 04, 2010 12:00AM EST Last updated on Thursday, Mar. 04, 2010 6:10AM EST
Fall report cards in Ontario just got a makeover - progress is in, letter grades are out and teachers are being invited to compose their own comments.
The makeover is the culmination of a pilot project launched by the Ministry of Education two years ago that saw 19 different report designs tested at a handful of school boards across the province... |
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by Sherry Gosal, Vice-Principal Northstar Montessori Private School, CCMA Accredited
Establishing her first Montessori school, ‘Casa de Bambini’ over a century ago, Dr. Maria Montessori has provided the children of today a comprehensive educational approach that recognizes each child as an individual that is growing and learning at their own pace. Such an individualized learning environment was so unique when it began, and remains so today in... |
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